TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Friday, Dec. 3.
Today’s highlight:
On Dec. 3, 1984, thousands of people died after a cloud of methyl isocyanate gas escaped from a pesticide plant operated by a Union Carbide subsidiary in Bhopal, India.
On this date:
In 1818, Illinois was admitted as the 21st state.
In 1828, Andrew Jackson was elected president of the United States by the Electoral College.
In 1947, the Tennessee Williams play “A Streetcar Named Desire” opened on Broadway.
In 1964, police arrested some 800 students at the University of California at Berkeley, one day after the students stormed the administration building and staged a massive sit-in.
In 1967, a surgical team in Cape Town, South Africa, led by Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed the first human heart transplant on Louis Washkansky, who lived 18 days with the donor organ, which came from Denise Darvall, a 25-year-old bank clerk who had died in a traffic accident.
In 1979, 11 people were killed in a crush of fans at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum, where the British rock group The Who was performing.
In 1992, the Greek tanker Aegean Sea spilled more than 21 million gallons of crude oil when it ran aground off northwestern Spain.
In 1994, AIDS activist Elizabeth Glaser, who along with her two children were infected with HIV because of a blood transfusion, died in Santa Monica, California, at age 47.
In 2000, poet Gwendolyn Brooks, the first African-american
to win a Pulitzer Prize, died in Chicago at age 83.
In 2010, during a surprise holiday-season visit to Afghanistan, President Barack Obama told cheering U.S. troops at Bagram Air Field they were succeeding in their mission to fight terrorism; however, foul weather prevented Obama from meeting with President Hamid Karzai in Kabul to address frayed relations.
In 2015, defense Secretary Ash Carter ordered the armed services to open all military jobs to women, removing the final barriers that had kept women from serving in combat, including the most dangerous and grueling commando posts.
In 2017, the second-largest U.S. drugstore chain, CVS, announced that it was buying Aetna, the third-largest health insurer, in order to push much deeper into customer care.
Ten years ago: In Atlanta, a defiant Herman Cain suspended his faltering bid for the Republican presidential nomination amid a series of sexual misconduct allegations that he condemned as “false and unproven.” Oklahoma State defeated Oklahoma 44-10 to win the Big 12 championship. (Exultant Oklahoma State fans stormed the football field, resulting in a dozen injuries.)
Five years ago: Some 20,000 people filled a tiny stadium in Chapeco, Brazil, to say goodbye to members of a soccer club who died in a plane crash in Colombia.
One year ago: A divided Wisconsin Supreme Court refused to hear President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the battleground state; the court said the case must first wind its way through lower courts.